The European Commission has expressed concern in regard to the parliamentary investigation concerning the activity of the Competition Council, which could affect the institution’s independence, a fundamental principle of a new directive in this field, European Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager said on Thursday, at the conference ‘European Competition and Consumers Day’.
Verstager said that the European Parliament adopted, early this year, a new directive in the competition field, granting higher independence to the institutions in this sector, g4media.ro informs.
“It is very important to have independent authorities, with enough resources and having the needed tools in order to protect the consumers. This means they could take over all kinds of evidence. This is why it is important that the new European legislation, agreed upon by all the Member States and adopted by the European Parliament with a large majority, should be implemented into the national legislation, in letter and spirit. Independence is a method to be sure you serve the citizens, as consumers,” the European Commissioner said.
Margrethe Vestager said that the parliamentary investigation initiated one month ago on the activity of the Competition Council regarding the ROBOR index raises concerns on the way in which the independence of the council is observed in Romania.
“We are monitoring the developments in regard to the institution’s independence in Romania and we are concerned on the parliamentary investigation on the activity of the Competition Council, which seems to question some of the fundamental principles of the directive,” Commissioner Verstager said.
The Parliament established in February an investigation committee to conduct an investigation on the activity of the Competition Council during 2008-2013 in the field of ROBOR.